# OpenAI poaches sales chief from SpaceX

> OpenAI's new revenue officer is rapidly building a sales team to compete for enterprise AI deals.
- Title: OpenAI poaches sales chief from SpaceX · Fortune | Shortify
- Summary: OpenAI's new revenue officer is rapidly building a sales team to compete for enterprise AI deals. OpenAI is aggressively hiring experienced sales leaders to…
- Keywords: openai, brian mccarthy, spacex, dali rajic, enterprise sales, ai adoption, snowflake, anthropic, sam altman, ipo, poaches, sales
- Source: Fortune — https://fortune.com/2026/09/17/openai-poache-brian-mccarthy-from-spacex-as-its-vp-of-worldwide-sales
- Author: Emily Forlini
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: openai, brian mccarthy, spacex, dali rajic, enterprise sales, ai adoption, snowflake, anthropic, sam altman, ipo
## OpenAI hires SpaceX sales exec
Brian McCarthy, who led global revenue at SpaceX, joins OpenAI as VP of worldwide sales. He's the first major hire under new chief revenue officer Dali Rajic.
## McCarthy's track record in sales
He previously led enterprise sales at Rubrik, ThoughtSpot, AppDynamics, and Qlik. At SpaceX, he joined through the acquisition of Cursor.
## Rajic rebuilds sales from Snowflake
Dali Rajic, who started as chief revenue officer on August 24, has also recruited Mark Fleming and Jaime Patel from Snowflake. Both held senior enterprise sales roles.
## McCarthy and Rajic worked together before
Both worked at AppDynamics from 2017 to 2018, where Rajic was chief revenue officer and McCarthy was VP of sales. Cisco acquired the company just before its planned IPO.
## Enterprise AI is the battleground
OpenAI and Anthropic are competing fiercely for corporate AI spending. OpenAI's latest Astra model recently surpassed Anthropic's Fable model in enterprise spend.
## McCarthy's vision for responsible AI
McCarthy said he joined OpenAI because he shares the vision of CEO Sam Altman and others about using AI to help people solve hard problems safely and responsibly.

> AI should help people solve hard problems, do more than they thought possible, and create new opportunities.
## Key takeaway

OpenAI is aggressively hiring experienced sales leaders to capture enterprise AI spending ahead of its expected IPO next year.